Originally Posted by Captain Buzzkill
After about 12-15 hours on hard, I can say that there is frequent pausing, but it's mostly assessing the battlefield and re-aquiring aggro on the warriors. The tactics feature of DA2 allows you to be as uninvolved as you like, as far as what uncontrolled characters do after combat begins, but it's very rare that you'll be able to breeze through most fights without pausing to see what's changed, especially when the 2nd and 3rd waves of enemies teleport onto the scene in a circle surrounding the mage.

Thanks for the answer. I'm glad someone playing this game isn't constantly in defense mode, and actually provides useful information.